Good morning. This is Martin Cohen, Corporate Secretary of Morgan Stanley. Welcome to our 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Today's meeting may include forward looking statements. Please refer to our annual report on Form 10 ks, quarterly reports on Forms 10 Q and current reports on Forms 8 ks for risks and uncertainties regarding such statements.
Good morning, everyone. I'm James Gorman, Chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley. I will now call the annual meeting to order. On behalf of my fellow directors, I would like to welcome you all and thank you for joining us. With me today is Eric Grossman, our Chief Legal Officer John Pruzan, our Chief Financial Officer and as you just heard from Marty Cohen, our Vice President, Counsel and Corporate Secretary.
Also on the line are my fellow directors who are all standing for election with me today, and I'm going to read through their names: Elizabeth Cawley Alastair Darling Tom Gloser, our Independent Lead Director Bob Herz Nobu Hirano Hiro Kamazawa Shelly Leibowitz Steve Lusso Jamie Missick Dennis Nally Mary Shapiro, Perry Traquina and Ray Wilkins. Their bios appear in our proxy statement available on the virtual meeting website. I would also like to introduce Tom Walker and Sal Davide, who are partners at Deloitte and Touche, our independent auditor, and they're available to answer your questions. So if I may, I'm going to begin with some opening remarks. However, before turning to discuss our progress and achievements in 2020, I'd very much like to thank Keishi Ogasawara, who is stepping down from our Board after 2 years of great service.
We're now nominating Hironori Kamazawara to replace him as an MUFG Director. I would like to thank TAC for his service to the Board. Bhutam Olyan is also stepping down from the Board after a spectacular 15 years of service. Bhutam served on several committees and most recently chaired the compensation management development and succession committee. I would like to thank Uttam for a dedicated service to Morgan Stanley and many contributions to the Board on behalf of my fellow directors and also all the employees of Morgan Stanley.
Her tenure covered a period of extraordinary change at this firm and we're grateful for her guidance and wisdom throughout. Let me take this opportunity to acknowledge the support and guidance of this tremendous Board of Directors under the leadership of our Independent Lead Director, Tom Gloser. We are extremely grateful to all of them for the work that they do in helping position us for long term success. Now talking about 2020, what an extraordinary and unusual year. The global public health crisis caused humanitarian and economic issues, leaving an indelible mark on all of us.
We all know family and friends that were directly affected or lost or who endured economic hardship. Our hearts go out to all of those that were directly and indirectly impacted by the crisis. Unlike over a decade ago, banks had the capital and liquidity to help their clients serve through what was the real economy. Morgan Stanley along with our largest banks along with other large banks in the U. S.
Voluntarily suspended its share buybacks in March of 2020 to ensure we maintained adequate capital and liquidity. We helped our corporate and institutional clients raise additional liquidity and obtain financing, and we guided our retail clients to manage their investment portfolios through turbulence. We also worked with global government agencies on programs to keep the markets functioning and support those affected by the economic downturn. Throughout the year, we also supported the more vulnerable members of our communities through charitable donations and employee engagement, and I truly believe we made a difference. We contributed to programs and organizations that did not receive federal assistance to help with the equitable recovery.
Our services to our clients and support to our communities would not have been possible without the extraordinary hard work and dedication of all of our employees. Due to robust business continuity planning and years of investment in technology infrastructure, the vast majority of our employees, 95% indeed at one point, have been able to work from home and continue to serve our clients. I'm so proud of the commitment they've shown to our clients and to Morgan Stanley in these extraordinary circumstances. Turning to our business results, our full year 2020 Q1 2021 results serve as a testament to the stability of the business mix and the balance we've worked so hard to achieve over the last decade. Morgan Stanley delivered record results in full year 2020 and again in the Q1 this year, generating strong returns for our shareholders and meaningfully driving our strategic vision forward.
The execution of our decade long strategy reached a milestone last year. In addition to strong financial performance, we successfully closed our acquisition of E*TRADE and announced our acquisition of Eaton Vance, which now closed in March of this year. We received an upgrade from Moody's and subsequently were upgraded again in January this year and we're now rated A1. Following the Federal Reserve's release of its 2nd stress test result, we announced the $10,000,000,000 share buyback program that we are now executing. Our performance and competitive position serve as concrete evidence that Morgan Stanley has indeed reached an inflection point.
We have meaningfully and with intent transformed our business over the last decade. And now we look to the next decade of the journey and we believe unambiguously Morgan Stanley has entered a new growth phase. As we make the important pivot to a growth organization, we will continue to enhance our culture of accountability, collaboration and inclusion, build a broad and diverse organization and develop the talent to steer the firm for the next decade of success. We have a strong and experienced senior leadership team with talented executives on both the business and infrastructure sides. This morning, we announced a number of changes in the responsibilities of several of our senior executives.
These changes represent the next evolution of leadership to ensure we have the right management in place to lead this firm in future decades. Ted Pick and Andy Saperstein will be Co Presidents of Morgan Stanley. Ted and Andy lead our 2 largest businesses, Institutional Securities and Wealth Management respectively. They played a critical role in our success and are proven leaders and managers. Ted will continue to be responsible for our Institutional Securities business and will now also run our international operations.
He will in addition co lead the firm's strategy and execution function. Andy will continue to run our wealth management business and he will now be responsible for all wealth management channels including financial advisors, e trade and Morgan Stanley work. In addition, Andy will be responsible for firm wide marketing globally. Dan Simkowitz has led the growth of our Investment Management business into an asset manager of scale through the recent acquisition of Eaton Vance as well as strong organic growth built on excellent investment performance. He will co lead firm strategy and execution in addition, working closely with Ted as his partner as we continue to explore growth initiatives for our businesses, particularly outside the United States.
John Pruzan has played a central role in the rebuilding of Morgan Stanley's balance sheet and liquidity over the past 6 years as CFO and is well positioned to now assume additional responsibilities. He will become our firm's Chief Operating Officer with responsibility for technology, operations, firm resilience, corporate services and our U. S. Banks. Jerome Yashaya will succeed John as CFO.
She has been instrumental in shaping and telling our story with investors as Head of Investor Relations and represents a younger generation of talent at our firm. Jerome will report to John and myself jointly. Shelly O'Connor will take on a new role as Vice Chairman and Head of External Affairs, overseeing community affairs, corporate affairs, global sustainability finance, multicultural client strategy groups. Shelly has spent her entire career at Morgan Stanley, most recently leading out the leading the build out of our banks, which now have a combined $300,000,000,000 in assets. Finally, Mike Pizzi, who joined us with the acquisition of E*TRADE and is helping integrate that business into the wealth management franchise, operating committee as will Jed Finn, the COO and Head of Corporate and Institutional Solutions in Wealth Management.
These management changes reflect the next generation of leadership at Morgan Stanley and build on other changes we've made in recent months. The changes give these executives increased responsibility and visibility internally and externally and will further position all of them for professional development. I look forward to continuing to work with each of these leaders and the rest of the operating committee and the management committee in the coming years as we build on our strong momentum and launch ourselves through the next decade. At Morgan Stanley, our culture is a key competitive advantage and it's built around our core values. In June, we added a 5th core value indeed to our core values, a 5th value, a commitment to diversity and inclusion.
Our core values, do the right thing, hook clients first, lead with exceptional thinking and give back have long underpinned everything we do. While our shared commitment to diversity has always been understood to be a part of Do the Right Thing, we felt it was imperative to more explicitly state our responsibility for representation, equitable treatment and justice. We are committed to a diverse and inclusive work environment where all employees can thrive. In the fall, we formally launched our new Institute For Inclusion. Its mission is to create an integrated and transparent diversity, equity and inclusion strategy that will drive meaningful change within Morgan Stanley and in support of our underserved communities.
The institute has an independent advisory board and is funded by initial commitment of $25,000,000 to ensure it can successfully fulfill its mission. In the fall, we also launched a program to provide 60 students with full 4 year scholarships to 3 of America's leading Historically Black Colleges and Universities. This program will set these scholars on a path to educational attainment and financial independence by lifting the barrier of higher education costs. These and other initiatives will help us activate our new core value. At Morgan Stanley, our values are endemic to who we are as an institution.
They tap into our core DNA, which was built over the last 85 years and make us the firm that we are today. Thank you, shareholders, for your ownership and support of this firm. We'll now proceed with the remaining items on today's agenda.
Thanks, James. Thank you to our shareholders joining us virtually today. American Election Services, the Inspector for Elections for this meeting is represented by Christopher Woods. The Inspector of Elections has taken the oath of office and a copy of his oath will be filed with the meeting minutes. He has determined that we have a quorum to conduct business at this meeting.
First, I will review the meeting rules and procedures, then we will consider the proposals that are voted on and I would deliver the preliminary vote of our Inspector of Elections. That will conclude our formal meeting. As set forth in our meeting rules that are posted on the virtual meeting website, during the annual meeting, shareholders may submit questions pertaining to the proposals by typing them in the space provided on the virtual meeting screen. Shareholders may also submit questions on topics other than the proposals being voted on that will be addressed during the general question and answer session. In order to give as many shareholders as possible the opportunity to ask questions, we ask that shareholders limit themselves to 2 questions.
If we receive questions from multiple shareholders on substantially the same topic or that are otherwise related, we may group such questions and provide a single response to avoid repetition. Please limit your questions to a few sentences. We may paraphrase or summarize lengthy questions. We ask that shareholders include their name and if applicable their company in the field provided when submitting questions. For our meeting rules, questions that are submitted anonymously will not be addressed.
If we experience technical difficulties that prevent us from continuing our virtual meeting today, the polls will be closed immediately and votes received prior to the closing of the polls will be counted. The meeting will not be reconvened and the vote results will be announced publicly. I now move the following company sponsored proposals that appear in the proxy statement. The election of your directors, the ratification of the audit committee's appointment of Deloitte and Touche LLP as the company's independent auditor for 2021, the approval of compensation of executives as disclosed in the proxy statement and the approval of the amended and restated equity incentive compensation plan. Thank you.
The proposals on the agenda are now before the meeting. We will now address any questions on the proposals.
There are no questions on the proposals.
Okay. The voting has now ended and the polls are closed. I will now present the preliminary report of the Inspector of Elections. The preliminary report of the Inspector of Elections indicates that at least approximately 97% of the votes cast for and against have voted for the election of each director nominee, approximately 97% of the votes cast have been voted for the ratification of the Audit Committee's appointment of Deloitte and Touche LLP as the company's independent auditor for 2021. Approximately 96% of the votes cast have been voted for the approval of the compensation of executives as disclosed in the proxy statement and approximately 96% of the votes cast have been voted for the approval of the amended and restated equity incentive compensation plan.
That summarizes the preliminary vote of the Inspector of Elections. The official report of the Inspector of Elections will be reported on a Form 8 ks filed with the SEC.
Thank you, Marty. Congratulations to fellow directors and thank you shareholders for your continuing great support. This concludes the formal part of our annual meeting and the annual meeting is now adjourned. We'll now proceed to the general question and answer. Given that we're running a virtual meeting, I would turn it over to Eric Grossman, our Chief Legal Officer.
We have a couple of questions, Mr. Gorman. First one is from Ben Cushing, who is attending on behalf of the Sierra Club. He writes, Morgan Stanley has committed to achieve net zero emissions from its financing portfolio by 2,050. However, this pledge does not go nearly far enough or fast enough to address the firm's role in the climate crisis.
Recent reports show that Morgan Stanley provided more than $111,000,000,000 in lending and underwriting to the fossil fuel industry in the 5 years since the adoption of the Paris Climate Agreement. Will Morgan Stanley take action this year to stop financing fossil fuel expansion and take other steps in order to provide a credible pathway to reaching the firm's long term commitment?
Well, Ben, I appreciate the question. As you know and from previous annual meetings, we've been deeply committed to the environmental sustainability space. We set up our Institute For Sustainable Investing in 2013. We have an external Board of Advisors. We've created a number of policy statements, specifically the environmental and social policy statement, and we've worked very hard with the franchise committee to ensure that the kinds of decisions that we make as a firm are consistent with that policy statement.
We're also helping a number of large energy companies transition to clean energy. And at the same time, helping them as they manage their portfolios from the businesses that they've been in and sometimes for 100 years to the new businesses, which are needed to be financed in the marketplace. On your specific question, our policy states and we are very, very good in sticking to it that there are project finance restrictions relating to new thermal coal mines, new or expansion of coal fired power plants and Arctic oil and gas. We also have enhanced due diligence for other high carbon intensive sectors. Our engagement approach for clients in high carbon sectors is to help them understand and work with them on their diversification strategies where they need our financial support to do that.
And as you stated at the opening, we're committed to net 0 finance emissions by 2,050. I would just say this is a multi decade journey. These things can't be turned on a dime. These are good companies with great employees that have been in existence for a long time and helping power our societies and we want to help them transition as they move their platforms to cleaner energy over the next several decades. Thank you.
Our next question is from shareholder Mark Daschen. Mark writes, what part will M and A play for Morgan Stanley in 2021 2022?
Well, Mark, I'll never say never, but we're in the middle of digesting the 2 largest deals that I think have been done by any large bank since the financial crisis, actually that's not true. There was a bigger deal done earlier on and that was Smith Barney, which we did. So it's 3 for 3. Our job now for our shareholders, our employees and most specifically our clients is to properly integrate these 2 great institutions that we have now bought. 1 of course is E*TRADE, a very large digital player, very strong at work employee stock plan business, very strong derivatives options trading business, and we're delighted with the progress that the team has made under Mike Pease's leadership in integrating E*TRADE and that will continue.
The second one of course just closed recently on, I think, March 1 this year, and that's Eaton Vance. Eaton Vance is was approximately $7,000,000,000 acquisition. E*TRADE was approximately $13,000,000,000 Eaton Vance is a world class asset manager. And back to the other question about sustainability, has a wonderful sustainability platform under Calvert Funds, active equity investments under the Elanda Funds, a strong fixed income liquidity business, and it has a wonderful platform called Parametric, which is a product we're very familiar with because a lot of our clients invest through it. So the short answer is we need to properly integrate those.
Tom Faust at Eaton Vance has been a wonderful addition to the firm helping us with his leadership team, make sure we have a seamless integration. And so far, the results are just spectacular. We're thrilled with the culture, the team and the businesses. So what other deals might we be doing right now? I think that's enough on our plate.
Again, next year is a long way out, but I think right now we need to focus on making this work well for our shareholders. We have no further questions. Well, my goodness. This might be the shortest annual meeting I've had the pleasure of presiding over and hopefully it's validation of confidence shareholders have in the strategy and in the leadership team, which I talked about in my opening remarks and we announced publicly this morning. I'm blessed.
I have an unbelievably talented group of leaders in the generation behind me and another group in the generation behind them. Our objective is to make sure Morgan Stanley is thriving for decades. We were founded in 1935 and we're very excited about the next 85 years of our performance. And along the way, we have this most wonderful partner in MUFG with 2 directors I mentioned on our Board that have been our partners and largest shareholder for over a decade now. So on behalf of our executive management team, again, I congratulate my fellow directors on their election.
I thank them for their service, and I wish you all a great day.
Thank you. The Annual General Meeting for Morgan Stanley has now come to an end. Thank you for attending. You may now leave the virtual